A special offshoot of our Recommends series, where Scott Laudati enjoys the planet’s best foodstuffs and eateries.
The Title Fight: Frank Pepe’s VS. Sally’s. New Haven, CT
Once upon a time, back in the closed society that was 1990’s Staten Island, there was a wholesome order. Our fathers grew up in our houses before us and so we ate the same pizza on Friday nights they’d always eaten, because we were still Catholics then, and we didn’t consume meat on Fridays to honor Jesus’ sacrifice of his own flesh. You knew your local pizza guys by name, and if you’d done good in school they’d send you home with a ball of dough to play with, and when it was time for a birthday party you’d order ten pies from them, not the new place down the street with coupons, and you’d sign your tab with a handshake, because trust maintains loyalty, and that kind of thing was really important in those days. But sometimes you had basketball practice across town. And if another father was driving you home you’d stop at his favorite joint, which he’d swear was the best on earth, and you’d be introduced to something totally new. If you went northeast (where the Brooklyn escapees landed), you might end up with a Sicilian pie. If you went closer to Bayonne (Denino’s), no matter who you were with you got the garbage pie (this was an Island favorite). Each neighborhood had something they specialized in, from stromboli to rice balls. There was one constant no matter where you went, though: it was always good. It had to be. The law of the land demanded it.
Our fathers were all cops, firefighters, or sanitation workers. Each morning and night they would leave their Alamos and venture to the alien worlds of the other boroughs. I didn’t understand them as separate entities back then, and they were as relevant to me as Nicaragua and Ohio. My dad, like the other dads, had gone to battle in New York City in the ’70s and ’80s, so there was no way they were bringing their families there for a day trip. But, like archeologists going out into the jungle, sometimes they’d return with artifacts. My father was stationed in Little Italy, and every now and then he’d come home with a Lombardi’s pie. Or Tommy The Tank down the street, his dad was up on 125th in East Harlem, and he’d bring home Patsy’s three days a week. So I was always curious about the pizza world beyond my own, because those ovens they used out there in the foreign lands of the City, they were already ancient by 1990, and they did something to a sheet of mozzarella and a thin crust of dough no modern ovens could. I wanted to find the best. And in a world before the internet, word of mouth was the only way to map a trail.
Pizza is one of those things that can immediately bond two people that otherwise have nothing in common. More so than even a sports team, because you both know you’re part of the smallest fraternity on earth. I got invited to the birthday party of a painter my age who lived in the backroom of a third story art gallery above a Crown Fried Chicken on the worst block in Newark, NJ. We’d never met before. His girlfriend’s dad was smoking crack out the window and his cat had just stolen one of my cousin’s chicken wings and was growling at anyone who got close. The painter put on a Spumoni Gardens hat, which is like throwing up a gang sign to the right person, and then we teleported to the roof and geeked out about all the legendary slices we’d had over a pack of cigarettes. I had a BA in pizza but this dude was a Doctor. He knew where the basil came from that Di Fara’s used. He had the secret Spumoni Gardens recipe many had died for. And he said something I’d never heard before. He said, “The best pizza comes from New Haven.”
FRANK PEPE PIZZERIA NAPOLETANA New Haven, CT
The lists get longer every year, but the top spots never change. Frank Pepe’s is always first or second. Frank and his wife, Filomena, came to New Haven from Italy in 1920. They spent a few years walking around the Little Italy of Wooster Street selling tomato pies until they could afford a store. In 1925, history was made as Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana opened its doors. It’s hopped back and forth a few times between its current 163 Wooster Street location and the place next door (157 Wooster Street), but the same oven’s been used since 1925. And it’s a beauty. It’s a white tiled coal oven that stretches almost wall to wall, making it more than double what a New York oven could ever be. The original pies didn’t have cheese because there was no refrigeration, so you either got a tomato pie or tomato pie with anchovies. In the 1960s Frank Pepe secured his name in the history books when he invented the clam pie. When I was a kid this specialty was only found in a few restaurants, but now the clam pie is available everywhere, and exists in the cannon up there with pepperoni as one of the few acceptable toppings. The same guy’s been shucking the clams for 40 years. The turnover rate is small. Most of the staff shares the family name.
SALLY’S APIZZA New Haven, CT
Sally’s is the other top spot and they jockey back and forth with Pepe’s. They’re only a few feet away from each other and I guess Sally’s main advantage is that on the one-way street you pass it first. The sign that greets you hanging above the front door immediately pulls you into the family-style tavern. Where Frank Pepe’s clean white pizza oven and kitchen make you feel like you’re going to your Grandparents’ house for a Sunday dinner, Sally’s reminds you of the local bar you’d stop at when you go back to your hometown. The walls are the wood panel of your childhood basement. The floor is a dull brown tile like your friend’s house whose parents still smoked inside. It’s almost as old as Frank Pepe’s but it doesn’t look classic. And it’s still lit by the same stained glass lampshades that hang above pool tables in midwest bars. You can’t ask for a better setting to melt the roof of your mouth and extinguish it with a fountain soda. No one who’s ever sat there has asked for more. There is no more.
The Verdict
It would be stupid to declare a winner here. The two best pies on earth exist within half-a-block of each other. They have the same oblong oval shape. They have the same thin crust—well charred but not burnt. The interior of each restaurant feels like two sides of the same home. And the same family is behind both of them (sisters, daughters, and sons bleed through both family trees)! It’s like deciding between your favorite dog or your favorite band. I like Sally’s better, but only by the smallest margin in voting history. And it could just be the novelty. The first few times I went to New Haven, Sally’s had weird hours and it was never open, so I ate a lot of Frank Pepe’s, which blew everything else I’d ever eaten out of the water. But when I finally got ahold of a Sally’s tomato and cheese pie, I felt like I’d bitten into the main conductor of the Universe. It was almost spiritual, a realization that as men we didn’t deserve something this good, and yet, whatever’s in charge still decided to give it to us. It was The Holy Grail.
Now that you know you’re in good hands at either Pepe’s or Sally’s, I’ll give you some advice. Back when I started going to New Haven you could get a table and eat inside. If you attempt to do this now you will ruin the experience, because you’ll be waiting and starving for hours. Call ahead and order your pie at least an hour early. You’ll see the word APIZZA everywhere, it’s pronounced “ah-beetz,” but if like me, you feel stupid saying that, you can tell the nice lady on the phone you want a “Large tomato and cheese pie.” When you arrive you’ll see a line in front (this goes for both Sally’s and Pepe’s). These are the people waiting to dine inside and they’ll be there forever. Walk right past them (they’ll be mad), and enter. A kid will be sitting at a table. Tell him you want to pay cash. He’ll send you inside the restaurant and you’ll have a minute or two to look around, take a quick picture, marvel at that ancient wonder of a pizza oven, and then you’ll get your pizza. On the way out that kid who sent you in will have a bucket of plates, cutlery, and napkins. Give him a small tip, take what you need, and then head back out. There’s a great little park in-between Sally’s and Pepe’s with a bench you can sit and eat. Or, you can go one block north to Wooster Square Park, a beautiful brownstone-lined patch of grass no one is ever at and eat your pizza in peace, looking up between bites at some of the only original architecture left in a city that used to be known for its elegance and gentry.
The real winner of the pizza wars is New Haven. My head still shakes every time I say that.
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